


Return of the Reassembler

by SkyHighDisco



Category: The Grand Tour (TV) RPF, Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Crack, Humour, The Reassembler, War of the Worlds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:27:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25786588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyHighDisco/pseuds/SkyHighDisco
Summary: James decides to reassemble an alien Tripod. Crackfic.
Relationships: Jeremy Clarkson & Richard Hammond & James May
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Return of the Reassembler

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tadpole4176](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tadpole4176/gifts).



> because those TG/TGT fics are gold and I wanted to commemorate them somehow. Sorry to be bothering, but since this crap of a one-shot was inspired by your work, I thought it was fair to let you know. Please never stop gifting us with your hilariously beautiful content.

This is a blissfully content time for James May. It was rare to see him this happy, and it had similar air as the final months of his contract expiration with the BBC. i.e., the making of ‘’ _The Reassembler_ ’’. 

The camera and sound crew who worked with him during the seven episodes tell him they enjoyed themselves as much as he did upon shaking his hand goodbye. James, a very forbearing man, had to admit those handshakes stirred up an enigmatic swarm of emotions tied to a melancholic impression of a permanent departure. As a result, he still has a tactile information for each hand he shook, locked safely in his memory box. He holds them as a final commemoration to BBC.

The silence was never meant to last long. Already in a few years’ time he begged Amazon to let him bring it back, under their own jurisdiction, of course. Thankfully, Amazon is Amazon, so alongside the audiobook of the same name, ‘’ _The Reassembler_ ’’ was resurrected back to life, although in the most unlikely of ways. It’s the return of the king, Jedi, native, Mack, the return nobody has ever heard of. James has taken the return so seriously that it doesn’t even fit in his little cosy workshop.

This literally has to be taken outside.

James knows it won’t be long before the other two catch on about what he’s doing and sure enough,

(it doesn’t take hours to reassemble this one. It doesn’t even take days)

three days in…

“And now to attach the quantum resonator to the matrix… and we should have our shield up once the engine is turned on. As for the engine itself, we will have to attach each individual grabbing tentacle which, by the way, has another hundred wires to—“

“James!”

He frowns. Nearly scrapes the delicate titanium at the rude interruption. Walks around the giant metallic body slumped across the grass with three giant legs sprawled around it like dead earthworms. Barely sees clearly the figure of Clarkson with hands on the hips standing on the grass. Richard is by his side, ridiculously smaller from this distance, almost invisible.

“What?” James wants to know.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Reassembling, what the hell does it look like I’m doing?”

Jeremy’s open-mouthed, utterly confounded face is so recognizable James knows what’s next to come out of the open gate.

“Why?”

“Because people have voted to want more reassembling, Clarkson, and I’m giving it to them, whatever irrelevant opinion you might feel inclined to share about it.”

Jeremy looks at Richard. “That is stupid.”

“What, his reassembly of choice?” Richard asks.

“No, the fact that he still thinks people want to watch that rubbish.”

Hammond looks back up. He wouldn’t call himself easily intrigued, not by a long shot — not with everything he’s went through — but there is something in this enormity that is genuinely scary. So he says,

“Tell you what, if they didn’t then, they will now.”

Jeremy looks at the small filming crew gathered around James for help, but doesn’t get any, so he sighs.

“May”, he yells again.

“What?” Agitated, but doesn’t look up.

“There are people wasting precious oxygen on this Earth who do more useful things that you are doing right now. God and Jesus are watching you form up there and they have never been so bored in their existence. Please, for the love of them, at least, stop this nonsense.”

James re-emerges from behind the huge lump of metal again and if Jeremy isn’t mistaken, that’s a frown crouching behind thick glasses and messy hair.

“Am I supposed to care about somebody else’s oxygen? Tell you something, Clarkson. How much do you think you’re contributing to humanity by questioning random people four-choice questions you don’t even know the answer to yourself?”

“I’m—“

“Do you actually think your and my show differ so much from that point of view? They are both educative programs, only mine is more delicate and detailed and admittedly doesn’t attract as much audience, and yes, there are actual people out there who went to college to learn how a reciprocating engine works and nobody cares which American president appeared in an old TV series nobody has even heard of. Sod off.”

Jeremy mouths, wants to counter with an argument of his own, mock the piss out of May like he had always had a right to do, but ends up just swallowing air. In the meantime, May is already back to fiddling with his screwdriver, jaw set firmly in a way only an aimless squabble with Clarkson can set.

Richard takes Jeremy’s bicep in a firm enough grip to get noticed and carefully tugs. “C’mon mate. You can’t win with him. I know you want to swing a shovel at the back of his head, but it wouldn’t help, either. He’d still go convinced of his idea. Facts don’t get to that head."

Grumbling and absolutely hating that he cannot prove the point because he is Jeremy Clarkson, the oldest of the three obediently turns around, mumbling complaints underneath his breath, and follows Richard back to the car. At least, Jeremy thinks consolingly, sitting in the driver seat of his _Aston_ , he has a proper car unlike _somebody_ who came to his first day of new job in a _Bentley_.

  
  


“It must be brought to attention that the legs act like their own kind of suspension since they are made of flexible half-molten titanium, which is about 45% lighter than steel, but it’s somehow made even lighter and more flexible in all these tentacles” James explains. It’s chilly today and he has to wear a winter jacket and his breath is white in the air when he speaks, but he is all warm and fuzzy inside and words cannot describe his delight.

He lifts a lengthy, smooth device that looks like a miniature _Boeing_ turbine engine, but instead of propellers, there are thin, narrow membranes brought together so incredibly close and reminding James of an eye iris. “Now these are the blood filters, which I wouldn’t normally put on for morally adequate reasons, but I know that if I don’t, I’ll suck my own blood with it.”

It’s a bit dark inside the ship, but luckily, human beings have at least developed enough to have invented electricity. James doesn’t even have to crouch — the inside is huge.

“It was used to fertilize and homogenize human blood to turn it into red weed, but as we all know, it would’ve ultimately been the Martians’ doom.”

_”Undone, destroyed by the tiniest creatures that God in His wisdom put upon this Earth.”_

James pauses. Thinks about the fact. Thinks how fragile the universe really is, in spite of its vastness. How life, taken oh, so for granted, is an impossibly brittle thing, how thin is the line between too hot and too cold. Between too dense and too thin. How it takes but a tiny cosmic flick to doom us all. We are born of star dust, and star dust we will become.

He hums again, finishing attaching the filters to their base. Tests their firmness until finally, he is satisfied.

He looks back. The young camera girl’s lips are brought tightly together and her nostrils are pulsating barely noticeably. James is in no doubt she is putting all effort she can that her hands don’t quiver, in spite of the woollen gloves. 

“Shall we take a break, then?” He suggests gently, sympathetically.

The cameras and the mic drop down with satisfied groans.

  
  


It’s a chilly autumn afternoon in London and things are in a common, hurried motion, save for the dense traffic. Bus lanes lay empty for the most part and car horns are the roads’ chorus. The capital of England is busy.

Until small tremors begin. They aren’t sporadic. There’s always about two seconds gap between them. Children grip their mothers’ legs. Dogs begin to bark wildly, and the wind picks up.

There is some screaming in the distance. Then some more. Cars stop if they aren’t already stationary, and very soon every individual attention is drawn in one direction and there is a machine multiple storeys tall, moving slowly on three legs, one at a time. Each time one leg touches the ground, a small vibration is carried through the concrete. There is a giant round reflector in the front of the structure under the rhombic dome akin to a singular bright white traffic light and underneath it hangs what appears to be a giant piece of sheet. Painted messily on it, evidently by hand, or in any case, something bigger operated by a hand, are the words,

**DON’T WORRY**

**I COME IN PEACE**

Apparently, it isn’t consoling enough in contrast to the absurdity that is a spacecraft to be convincing. Screams turn from occasional to cacophonic and chaos envelops the London neighbourhood as people begin rushing one way, away from the approaching monstrosity.

But it’s just James May. A very happy, contented, fuzzy James May, humming a song through his nose and enjoying the view through the front obscure glass of the cap set atop the headlamp of the diamond-shaped body of the ship.

„Bedda, bedda, beda de dud.“ Pop of the lips.

He is treading cautiously with the operation console, careful not to crush any buildings, cars, or people panicking out of their minds, enjoying the rhythmic sound of the leg suspension creaking and kinaesthetic bellows releasing a haunting, hollow sound with every step of the Tripod’s legs. Moving very, _very sloooowly_.

He muses to himself about going to Clarkson's farm and sucking his blood but decides it would be a dishonour for the whole of England if he chose to disperse it across its soil.

James looks at the large push-in button to his right. Presses his lips together. 

Yes. 

No.

But the temptation is too much.

He relents, gives in.

Presses it.

A horn blares covering 180 degrees around the ship, and it’s five times stronger than a train horn, which hovers at 175 decibels. It vibrates through the entire body of the ship, through May’s bones, sending him into a laughing fit. An A is the tone when his fist pushes in and while the button is returning back up, the horn exhales in a C, dispersing for miles around. James feels sorry for people nearest to him, but he cannot help but feel a prestigious overwhelming feel of power.

“ _I_ am a driving god”, he decides.

He is still happy as the ship presses on, one long leg after the other, almost oblivious to people scurrying around bellow the three-toed feet of the humongous contraption, wondering if he could waltz this to work and back every day.

And what are those tanks, mortars and air missile defence trucks doing in the middle of the road over there?


End file.
